I blame building a new house. Because ever since Sean and I signed the contract for a new home (which has now reached roof height) my brain has not stopped thinking about interior décor. And, why, Jackson’s nursery in our existing home became my favourite ‘project’ of 2016.

I am the first person to admit that my skills are predominately left-brained; and less-so on the creative side (hence why the professionals have been hired for said new home). BUT doing a room for one’s first baby is beyond exciting! It may also have resulted in me pinning inspiration pics from the moment my pregnancy was confirmed and went into overdrive until the actual buying and preparation begun.

What became clear from my zealous pinning antics was two-fold:

ONE: Nurseries have become a lot more sophisticated than cartoon-centric rooms, creating a calming space for Mom to relax and enjoy too;

TWO: Knowing I was expecting a boy meant that I wanted to incorporate a ‘Woodlands’ theme into the room but without doing a fully themed room.

Ultimately my inspiration was drawn from this photo of Brooklyn Blonde’s nursery during her home reveal on the blog. It perfectly suited the relaxed but sophisticated space I wanted to achieve and cleverly showed how to integrate the ‘baby elements’ into the design of the room.

I settled on a palette of soft grey, navy and white for the room’s colours. In order to bring the Woodlands/animal theme to the room, I knew I would need a set of beautiful framed prints for the walls and thus begun my search for the perfect set. Ilaria thankfully stepped in and created six gorgeous prints (see more on her business Flat White Designs), framed in natural wood which – I think – perfectly complimented the soft, grey walls of the room.

While most of the furniture was sourced from baby-furniture suppliers, the rest of the of the smaller items and soft furnishings were found from retailers like Woolworths and @home after several weekends of mall-trawling.